Sunday, October 25, 2015

I love to make small quilts to use for home decorating, be it table runners, wall hangings or doll quilts. This is a quilt I have made out of civil war reproduction fabrics. I made 4" finished sawtooth stars (one of my favorite blocks) out of different blue prints, using the same background fabric for all of them. Placed on point with a blue alternate inner blocks and brown setting triangles. The quilt measures 21 1/2" square.

I quilted it myself on my domestic sewing machine by outlining the stars, and quilted a star in the inner blocks. The triangles have free motion feathers quilted in them and the border has loops.

I'm entering this quilt in the small quilt category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Follow the links to find out more and to see more of the quilts entered.

Friday, October 23, 2015

It all began here at a quilt shop in the Chicago suburb of Barrington that Beth took me to. I saw the log cabin quilt (scroll down on my link to see it) and really, really loved it. I knew it would be crazy to make one with one inch logs (unfinished). Yes, that's one half inch finished!

I started the quilt sometime around the beginning of 2012 and finished it October 8, 2015 - just this month. It is a scrappy quilt and measures 85" x 95". Most of the piecing was done during our travels across the USA in our camper while visiting our 3 sons spread out from Florida to Oregon and visiting as many national parks as we could along the way. I remember working on it while in Mississippi waiting for our truck transmission to be fixed. My Featherweight got a workout on this quilt (and others).

It was finished and quilted with hooked feathers on my Janome 6600. This link will show some sewing that was done in our camper on my Featherweight sewing machine.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Now that my log cabin quilt is finished, I need to catch up with a few things. First, I decided to make a couple test blocks from the pattern, Pineapple Nine Patch. I have admired this quilt for some time and am thinking about making it. I cut some fabrics and sewed 2 blocks together to see what I think. I chose greens, browns and some blues for the dark and creams to yellows for the light. I'll keep these 2 blocks on my design wall for a while to decide what I want to do. Some of the fabrics are batiks and some are not.

My guild here in Oregon always does a Round Robin quilt and I have never done one before. I really hadn't planned to participate, but then I thought, "Why not?", so here is my center block - a butterfly. I just have to embroider the antennae and I'm ready to turn it in next month. I hope I'll be able to keep up with it each month.

Here's my design wall for today. It is a hodge podge of things. First, you will see a hummingbird. I don't know what I'm going to do with him,

Second is a red/white/blue block that I will be using to make a Quilt of Valor. I hope it will turn out OK. I'm using it as a leader/ender project.

Under the Pineapple Nine Patch is a table runner of HSTs that I haven't sewn together yet. I have sold 2 of these from my Etsy shop, so I decided to make another one. I use charm packs for the colored half of the half square triangles.

Under that on the left is a table topper I'm making for my Etsy shop as well. It is basted now along with a couple other table runners. The other stars & multi-colored HSTs are up there to try to figure out what to do with them.

This blue and white table runner/dresser scarf was started back in Texas before we moved. I'm not sure when I did the embroidery on it. I finally got it basted for quilting.

Here's a close up of the embroidery.

Last, but not least, I have been doing some knitting while I watch TV at night and I've made 3 sets of this doll skirt and hat. Of course, she has to have a blouse to go with them. I got the yarn at the Good Will store in a large bag full of real nice yarn. So far I've made 3 sets of skirts/hats and I don't know how many dish cloths with the yarn.

Here's the other color. It looks pretty red here, but is really more rusty. These will go to my DGD for her doll and the extra ones can be given to some of her friends.

Have a great weekend! It's supposed to rain for the next 3 days here in Oregon.

Friday, October 9, 2015

My Log Cabin quilt is finished, except for the label! It took me nearly 3 years to get it done and I am very happy!! The "logs" are 1/2" finished.

The binding is the same fabric as the backing.

As you know, I had lots of quilting issues, but finally got that straightened out and fixed all the rat's nests on the back.

Here's a close up of the quilting if you can see it. I posted this picture a week or so ago.

I also finished the Country Roads Quilt-a-long that Lori had. It is quilted and bound as well.

Oh, it feels so good to finish things - especially things that have taken "forever."

We even went to the coast one day this week. It's only about 50 miles from here. The Oregon coast is beautiful, but not as good for swimming as Florida. It was a cloudy day. We got to see some whales splashing in the water about 1/2 mile off shore!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Saturday, I went to the Westside Quilters Guild Quilt Show in Hillsboro, OR. It was a beautiful drive through the countryside from where we live and there were many amazing quilts! I didn't take very many pictures, so this is only a small sampling of the quilts they had on display.

This first one is stunning!

This "veggie cat" quilt is excellent and adorable.

I took a few close-up shots too. As you can see, the cats are in the shape of a vegetable!

I loved this quilt. The pieces are 1" each!

This one was interesting and a lovely wall hanging.

This was one of my favorites and was all made out of half-square triangles (HSTs)!

Hope you enjoyed the show! And, yes, I did buy some fabrics from vendors and we visited a tiny quilt shop too. It was a very fun day!

Monday, October 5, 2015

Back in August, I blogged about a giveaway I won from Rogue Quilter and part of it was a bunch of mini tumbler pieces in reds, whites & blues. I got it sewn together pretty quick and finally quilted and bound it. It will make a nice addition to my "patriotic" decor! Thanks Janet!

Close up of the quilting, which was just a stippling all over.

I had the perfect backing for it - American flags! I used this fabric on my civil war quilt.

Here it is hanging on my fence. It measures 12 1/2" x 18". Each piece is 2" x 2" (at the wide end) and there are 72 of them.

I plan to bind my log cabin quilt soon and will be posting about it again (yes, again) soon.

Moda Block Heads

About Me

I've been quilting more than 20 years, sewing most of my life. I've been married 54 years, have 3 married sons, 3 wonderful DILs and 5 grandchildren. I am now retired from the U. S. Court! DH and I enjoy camping in our 5th wheel. I have enough ideas to keep me busy for many years of quilting!